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mental basis of all financial speculations, is not 

 illusory in the enterprize for which I warmly 

 plead. The dividends of the companies in Eng- 

 land who have obtained the grant of opening 

 canals, prove the utility of these enterprises, 

 even for the share-holders. The tax of tonnage 

 in a canal of junction of the seas, may be so 

 much more considerable as the ships which 

 profit from the new passage in going to the 

 fishery of Lima, Cachelot, or to the north-west 

 coast of America, and thence to Canton, would 

 considerably shorten their way, and avoid the 

 high southern latitudes, dangerous in the bad 

 seasons. The activity of the passage would 

 augment in proportion as traders became more 

 familiarized with the new direction from one 

 ocean to the other. Even if the dividends were 

 not sufficiently considerable, and the capitals 

 placed in this enterprize did not bear the inte- 

 rest offered for the numerous loans made by 

 governments, from the coast of the Mosquito 

 Indians, to the last confines of Europe, it would 

 fye the policy of the great states of Spanish 

 America, to give this enterprize their support ; 

 since it would be fogetting all that experience 

 and political economy have taught for ages, to 

 restrain the utility of canals and high roads, to 

 the duties paid by the transport of merchan- 

 dize, and to count for nothing the general in- 



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